Number 1 and 2 are not ironic. Irony means it's unexpected. It's fully expected that someone who eats lots of fatty foods will die of a heart attack. There is nothing ironic about choking on cockroaches, unless it was a fundraiser for raising awareness of the benefits of eating cockroaches or something.

The last one is probably ironic, because he likely advocated for the safety of segways or something.

Re: Definition of irony. Anyone? Anyone?

> Irony means the use of words to express
> the opposite of the literal meaning, or
> an incongruous result - something that
> turns out the exact opposite of what one
> would naturally assume.

Yes, but so many people use the word 'irony' incorrectly these days, that *you* are actually wrong for telling them they're wrong. Apparently if a mistake becomes pervasive enough, the word suddenly doesn't mean what it used to anymore.

'Decimate' is a prime example of this. Masnick constantly uses it in his articles here to mean 'to completely destroy' (as did Obama in last night's State of the Union), when it actually means 'to reduce by 10%'. Since that leaves 90% intact, being decimated really isn't that serious of a blow.

However, the couple of times I've pointed it out, I've been told that I'm the one who's actually wrong because no matter what the real definition of 'decimate' may be, most people think of it as a synonym for 'annihilate', so that's what it now means.